Definition

One must make a distinction however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the autocrats among us can be “literalists of the imagination”—above insolence and triviality and can present for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have it.

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Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Anima and Animus, from Dream to Flesh

If you
could read the thoughts of your wickedest Dream, what would your Dream write
about you? We pondered the question, with all the seriousness it deserved (we
infiltrated our Dreams’ journals), and present to you the findings:

Whisking delicate

tea into a heady froth

to delight my love,

my bliss is found inside her

enjoyment of my strivings.

I read her soul bright

while feasting on all her dark.

She writes me real…

at midnight, her wild tongue dreams

me alive, tasting her mine.

She gifts me with flesh

substantial enough to touch

past imagined boundaries.

The only reality I want

is the one that she creates.

When morn devours night,

the moon and I yearn for her

soul dancing in mine:

Anima and Animus

as mind in flesh, me in
her.

I wish my name on

your lips, under the
sunlight,

a dream crafted real—

I will spell ink into
flesh,

“Words be dreams and dreams
be words.”

the process…

- At first, we were going
to craft a poem inspired by the art of writing and the current socio-political
madness. But the pain was much too deep and dark and, well… too much. So, we
switched to a topic we both love and that often brings us much pleasure
*cough*: dreams. We played around with the dream and dreamer shown in Jorge
Luis Borges’ “The Circular Ruins”, danced with Jung’s Anima and Animus, and
dressed the whole thing up in tanka.

- We each wrote two
stanzas—imagining our speakers exchanging adventures at a dream bar (dream bars
are real, really). We wrote the last stanza together, on the phone, serenaded
by much squealing. We hope you enjoy the result as much as we delighted in the
process.

33 comments:

My goodness!💘 This is deliciously dark and enticing! It feels as though one voice beaming through the portal of dreams. Especially love; "I wish my name on your lips, under the sunlight, a dream crafted real— I will spell ink into flesh, "Words be dreams and dreams be words".. as I can truly feel the magic which you both have infused here. Sigh.. a most unforgettable poem, Magaly & Rommy!💘

"Tea" three words in. Rommy?!!!!!!! LOL. Now...my goodness. I never saw THAT coming, meaning the love object in this poem. Of course, naturally, you know I love it.

You two aced the dreamy stuff. Dreams, of course, remove inhibitions and critical judgement, but there's more--it seems to me that in an erotic or romantic dream, everything is somehow more intense, not diluted in any way. If you love in a dream, it's ass over teakettle. If you're with someone in a dream, nobody is lying back and thinking of England, you know? You caught that concentration of desire wonderfully. it puts me in mind of the Beatles' "I Want You."

I am arrested by that closing. I know that I have rushed from bed to my notebook to make poetry out of a dream many times, so I am wondering if some of this is the product of a dream (or dreams) you gals may have had. My sense is, YES! While the details may differ wildly, the emotion, the fierceness of it has to be drawn from a real source, not just invented.

Somehow I want to declare Magaly guilty for the breaking of taboo(s) in this, and send the jury home with the court's thanks, but I suspect you both simply cut loose, and then regrouped to give it its fine order and coherence. The freedom and innate creativity of a dream, + the luv, + two kick-ass poetesses = THIS, and it is just so fine.

PS--I forgot to commend you gals on ditching your original theme when it wasn't working out. A lot of people would have felt obliged to press on regardless, and it would not have been anything like the beauty of a poem you ended up writing.

@Fireblossom, You've just made me roar. Right after we decided that writing about our first topic would be too depressing (and probably dangerous for whoever was within reach of our throwing arms), I remember saying to Rommy: "Let's make it about the things we love most: tea, flesh, sex, and hot blood." I still remember the sound of our laughter. There was sooo much laughter in the drafting of this piece, so much love and pure fun... I'm delighted all those feelings are now dancing in our poem.

@Fireblossom Thanks. I know we were both feeling the weight of some issues especially heavily at this time and it was either write something joyously dark or go on a murder spree. Neither one of us could fit a decent spree into our schedules, so erotic and dark it was!

This is such a delight to read, you two--MUCH better than a murder spree(--unless you were in D.C. of course, and no one was looking.) I also love the whisking of real into surreal at the opening and the sense of the unconscious taking over that we get in dreams, to open doors for us where we had no idea there were even rooms. I was going to start quoting all the lines I especially liked, but I realized I would be copying the entire poem. I am not a big fan of collaborations in general, but this one was that celestial match we all are looking for. Thanks for making my morning, with the poem, and with the commentary. ;)

@Joy Ha!I think at a certain point when we started kicking imagery around we flowed into that "unlocking of the unconscious" feeling you described because we were having a lot of fun seeing how much wilder/freer we could go. Thank you for the kind praise. I'm pretty proud of being part of the poetic alchemy that birthed this piece.

Argh, lost my comment. This is fan-freaking-tastic. What a magical collaboration. I especially love "her wild tongue dreams me alive." I can HEAR the delighted - and delicious - squeals during composition. I love every word and line of this. You two are a perfect creative combination. I would like to hear more joint efforts from you. For now, I tip my hat. You excelled!

I love the wild ride you did, and so much kudos for dropping the rage... so much to say about that... but I preferred this. Amazing that you actually wrote the last part together. Thank you so much for sharing

I am so glad you two decided to drop your original theme - indeed, there is already enough rage and madness out there without adding more to the universe. Instead, you all started off with the whisking of matcha as in the so solemn Japanese tea ceremony. You turned solemnity and serenity into a rollicking sexual and sensual and absotively dreamy poem. Wonderful collaboration. I don't usually enjoy collaborations because they seem kind of...strained and one then the other and one and then the other...this was seamless and again, rollicking. I can just imagine a road trip with the two of you. More fun and more wildness than Mr. Toad's wild ride. Brava my ladies. Standing ovation AND a deep bow. :-)

@Hedgewitch, I know I should not be laughing so hard at the thought of murder-spree-poetry, but I can’t stop. Horror nerves, I suppose… I am delighted you enjoyed the poem. It was a wonder to write. We had so much fun that we might have to do it again.

@Khaya, Thanks so much.

@Sherry, Oh, there was all sorts of delight roaring around. And you will get to hear more about our efforts, soon. We have to share it. It was too much fun to keep to ourselves.

@Bjorn, The world doesn’t need any more screaming and hurting. Not if we can avoid it.

@Angie, Dreams are gifts… and the ones we craft are better when shared, methinks.

@Toni, That would be a glorious road trip, indeed. We might get in all sorts of trouble. But it would be a blast!

I read this as if the speaker was the dream, a persona that inhabits the dreamer, and must wait impatiently for the night to inhabit the inner world of the dreamer. It is not like something I have ever read before.

After a very busy day yesterday, I sat down this morning to catch up on reading and found your 'Anima and Animus, from Dream to Flesh', Magaly and Rommy. What a way to start the day, with delicate tea! I was taken by the lines:'I read her soul brightwhile feasting on all her dark.She writes me real…at midnight, her wild tongue dreamsme alive, tasting her mine'and'I will spell ink into flesh,“Words be dreams and dreams be words.”'

Wow! A love fest sprinkled with laughing squeals and sexy words! While I enjoy a murder spree, especially when accompanied by hammers, this piece was soooo very much more. I, for one, am suggesting many more collaborations between the two of you! You are crafting such magic!

"Anima and animus," so much more refreshing than our burgeoning socio-"political madness". So much going on done in the name of religion yet defiling the very principals of the religion the claim to be working to further. Starting with here with Christian, lately Islam, and now the madness in Myanmar. I learned a lot of both terms here, thanks mainly to Google.

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